Topekans urged to fight poverty

Posted: Tuesday, January 18, 2000

By By PHIL ANDERSONThe Capital-Journal

With presidential and congressional elections looming, Jim Wallis on Monday night questioned whether any candidate would muster the political courage to remember the vision of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and place the needs of the poor on the national agenda.

Many of today's elected officials and candidates, Wallis said, could be described as "wet-fingered politicians." Such a politician makes decisions by wetting a finger in his or her mouth, then holding it in the air to see which way the breezes of public opinion are blowing.

But that wasn't King's way, Wallis said. Instead of making decisions based on opinion polls, King showed Americans concerned about social justice that "you have to change the wind."

Wallis, 51, an author and evangelical minister who for 25 years has worked as a civil rights activist from his Washington, D.C., home, was the featured speaker at Monday night's seventh annual community celebration of King's birthday at Grace Episcopal Cathedral, 701 S.W. 8th.

The program, which church officials said was attended by a racially mixed crowd of 600 people, was sponsored by Whose Dream Is It?, Topeka's Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. coalition.

"Something is wrong tonight in the richest nation on the face of this Earth, that began the millennium by touting its prosperity," Wallis said at the outset of his presentation. "The prosperity is not being shared. The rising tide is not lifting all the boats, only the yachts."

Among Wallis' chief concerns is seeing that the nation's poor are treated humanely and are allowed to share in the nation's wealth, issues that prompted him to organize the national Call to Renewal, a federation of churches and faith-based organizations working to overcome poverty and revitalize American politics.

Through Call to Renewal, Wallis has brought together a disparate group of clergy, including mainline, evangelical, Pentecostal, Catholic and black ministers, as well as representatives from other faith groups.

Three Christian Roundtables on Poverty have taken place, and a recent National Summit on the Churches and Welfare Reform brought together 500 faith-based organizations from 40 states.

It isn't easy dealing with religious folks from different backgrounds, Wallis conceded Monday night. He said it made his work as a mediator among street gangs seem almost easy by comparison.

At Harvard University, where he has lectured in recent years, Wallis said one of the hottest topics on campus is "faith-based organizations," which have made differences in communities across the nation in the areas of youth violence, welfare-to-work and drug addiction.

As a result, politicians this year seem to be taking an interest in faith-based organizations.

"Their interest in us," he said, "may be a test of our faith."

Wallis was named by Time magazine as one of the "50 faces for America's future" and serves as editor of Sojourners magazine, which analyzes faith, culture and politics for its 80,000 readers.

Wallis said poor people had become a leading cause for King before his death. In fact, it was working conditions of sanitation employees that brought him to Memphis in April 1968, where he was shot and killed.

When King lay wounded from the gunshot, two of his confidants ran to his aid: the Rev. Ralph David Abernathy and Andrew Young.

Both arrived at King's side at the same time, Wallis said, but had different reactions.

Wallis said he has asked himself who was right -- Young or Abernathy -- and has pledged to do what he can to pick up the mantle for poor people that fell to the ground the day King was killed.

He said he has reasons to hope that others are joining him in the battle, as shown by the coming together of groups that historically have stayed apart, to address the problem of poverty and welfare reform.

"It's happening all over the country," Wallis said. "I have never seen a coming together on this issue of poverty like we're seeing now."

Wallis will discuss the religious community's response to poverty in a breakfast meeting with local clergy at 7:30 a.m. today at Lowman United Methodist Church, 4000 S.W. Drury Lane.